October 22, 2006
We decided today we would take a bottle of formula, just a 4 oz one though and give it to him so he wouldn’t be starving!!! Well, I had decided the other day to buy a certain kind of formula in the store, I could read the label, and it said “soy.” Today when I went to get the stuff, they had moved it, and they didn’t have that kind. So I bought a “lactose free” one. Hopefully he is ok with it. He was still trying the faker cry stuff today a little. But we ignored it. It really is so funny. When I pulled out the bottle of milk, he went nuts! He started smacking his lips, a lot more than when he sees the snacks. He was bouncing up and down and then crawled as fast as possible across the room to me. It was the most pitiful display of hunger we have seen from him yet! He thinks he is starving, but what they tell us, is that if they don’t eat it now, they don’t get any when they are hungry, so they eat as fast as they can when they can. He started fussing, because he wanted it so badly! We put him in my lap and made him lay back and relax, which he can not do. He is afraid he won’t get the bottle, he has to make sure he can see it until he gets it in his mouth! Then he sucked like crazy, then I realized I had not changed the nipple on it, and it was a “slow” one. He didn’t seem to care, he just wanted to drink it. It was so sweet, he was so noisy, and we kept saying he sounded like a little piggy! Jerry was wondering if it was normal. He had his little hands made into fists so tight… we kept trying to get him to relax, but this bottle drinking is serious business! But when he was laying there he was just a helpless little baby! When the bottle was emptied he started to cry, we felt bad that we didn’t have more, but we didn’t want to get in trouble with the doctor or anything. He was actually crying, because it was empty. So we held him and then distracted him and he was fine after that. We actually got an extra half and hour with him this morning, because the other family isn’t able to visit on Sunday for some reason. It was nice… he was not trying to get out the door and get food. We had so much fun giving him the bottle that we will do it in the afternoon too! He certainly enjoyed the bottle too! Then we spent time examining a chair… Alex went chair surfing… as you can see in the photo. He hasn’t quite figured out the chairs yet. But he likes them.
We took a bottle again, and do you know that kid instantly crawled toward my bag that I had it in earlier, he was trying to look in there, and was smacking his lips again. He remembers things, especially when it deals with food! We made him wait a while because the water was too hot still. I hadn’t perfected how much heat is lost from the microwave to the babyhouse in a bottle yet. Jerry had to distract him while I got the bottle ready. Then when he heard me shaking that crazy bottle, he went crazy again, laughing and crawling so fast to get to me! Again, he just laid there and drank it down… I put the “fast” nipple on it, but I think I will go back to the slow, because he drinks it so fast and then it is gone and he actually cries, because there is no more. The faster we can distract him after wards the better.
Today we got to go in his group room again! Jerry with the video camera and I with my camera. When we went in, one little girl was crying and crying and crying! I felt so bad. I wanted to pick her up and comfort her. Her little eyes were all red and big tears were coming down her cheeks! She was standing up in the play pen holding on to the bars and just sobbing! Maybe she was hungry. I reminded them that we would take 2 babies! It didn’t do any good. A single caregiver was there and she was feeding another child. He was sitting in a chair and she was sitting in front of him shoveling the food in! All the other babies were in the play area, which consisted of the playpens and some furniture blocking them in. Most of the babies had been sleeping, and had to be woken up so we could come in and see. There was about 10 babies in there, all about the same age as Alex. We went through that room into the bedroom, we counted 14 beds. We don’t know if there is a baby for each one. We put Alex in his bed so we could take a picture of him in it. Alex was all smiles! It was as if he was so happy to show us his bed and stuff. Plus he was going to get to eat, soon. Did I mention, this kid loves to eat?! We were so relieved to have been able to go in again and get pictures. They aren’t perfect pictures, but they are pictures!!
October 23, 2006
We took the bottle again today! He was so excited… he just loves it! He was sleepy, but definitely not going to sleep now. Its not in his schedule!
We went to the Bazaar. I actually bought some boots today! Yeah!!! We found a snowsuit that should fit him as well. We will go back tomorrow though to buy it, and other things! :)
We also bought Alex some boots. They are so cute! They also fit his fat little feet perfectly! He actually likes them too. He looked at them, tasted them, played with them, it was pretty cute!
Thursday, October 26, 2006
Monday, October 23, 2006
Still Visiting!
October 21, 2006
Well, the caregivers and the doctor did not do a very good job at answering very many questions! That was a bummer… at least we have a few more days to try to get some more answers. They have relinquishment papers, we have been told, but they know nothing about the birth mother. They should at least have a name. Someone had to sign the papers. So we are going to keep trying. We don’t need to know for us, but someday Alex is going to want to know as much as possible.
Today we also took the big flash for the camera. We were getting tired of the dark pictures! It was perfect, who cares how many batteries it uses! Today we got pictures of him doing his chin-ups! There is always something on the desk that he can not have, camera, accordion, etc. so he tries to get them by pulling himself up. So anyways today we put some of his favorite toys up there and sure enough, up he went! With supervision this time! He is really strong!
He discovered if he cries we will respond. Except he would fake cry, and then look at us to see what we would do. It was the funniest thing yet!! We nearly died of laughter!!! He is such a mess! After a few minutes, it got annoying, so we decided to ignore it. Then he did it every time we would actually take out his snacks… so then we would not give him the snack. He stopped it after a while. He is so funny!
October 22, 2006
We decided today we would take a bottle of formula, just a 4 oz one though and give it to him so he wouldn’t be starving!!! Well, I had decided the other day to buy a certain kind of formula in the store, I could read the label, and it said “soy.” Today when I went to get the stuff, they had moved it, and they didn’t have that kind. So I bought a “lactose free” one. Hopefully he is ok with it. He was still trying the faker cry stuff today a little. But we ignored it. It really is so funny. When I pulled out the bottle of milk, he went nuts! He started smacking his lips, a lot more than when he sees the snacks. He was bouncing up and down and then crawled as fast as possible across the room to me. It was the most pitiful display of hunger we have seen from him yet! He thinks he is starving, but what they tell us, is that if they don’t eat it now, they don’t get any when they are hungry, so they eat as fast as they can when they can. He started fussing, because he wanted it so badly! We put him in my lap and made him lay back and relax, which he can not do. He is afraid he won’t get the bottle, he has to make sure he can see it until he gets it in his mouth! Then he sucked like crazy, then I realized I had not changed the nipple on it, and it was a “slow” one. He didn’t seem to care, he just wanted to drink it. It was so sweet, he was so noisy, and we kept saying he sounded like a little piggy! Jerry was wondering if it was normal. He had his little hands made into fists so tight… we kept trying to get him to relax, but this bottle drinking is serious business! But when he was laying there he was just a helpless little baby! When the bottle was emptied he started to cry, we felt bad that we didn’t have more, but we didn’t want to get in trouble with the doctor or anything. He was actually crying, because it was empty. So we held him and then distracted him and he was fine after that. We actually got an extra half and hour with him this morning, because the other family isn’t able to visit on Sunday for some reason. It was nice… he was not trying to get out the door and get food. We had so much fun giving him the bottle that we will do it in the afternoon too! He certainly enjoyed the bottle too! Then we spent time examining a chair… Alex went chair surfing… as you can see in the photo. He hasn’t quite figured out the chairs yet. But he likes them.
We took a bottle again, and do you know that kid instantly crawled toward my bag that I had it in earlier, he was trying to look in there, and was smacking his lips again. He remembers things, especially when it deals with food! We made him wait a while because the water was too hot still. I hadn’t perfected how much heat is lost from the microwave to the babyhouse in a bottle yet. Jerry had to distract him while I got the bottle ready. Then when he heard me shaking that crazy bottle, he went crazy again, laughing and crawling so fast to get to me! Again, he just laid there and drank it down… I put the “fast” nipple on it, but I think I will go back to the slow, because he drinks it so fast and then it is gone and he actually cries, because there is no more. The faster we can distract him after wards the better.
Today we got to go in his group room again! Jerry with the video camera and I with my camera. When we went in, one little girl was crying and crying and crying! I felt so bad. I wanted to pick her up and comfort her. Her little eyes were all red and big tears were coming down her cheeks! She was standing up in the play pen holding on to the bars and just sobbing! Maybe she was hungry. I reminded them that we would take 2 babies! It didn’t do any good. A single caregiver was there and she was feeding another child. He was sitting in a chair and she was sitting in front of him shoveling the food in! All the other babies were in the play area, which consisted of the playpens and some furniture blocking them in. Most of the babies had been sleeping, and had to be woken up so we could come in and see. There was about 10 babies in there, all about the same age as Alex. We went through that room into the bedroom, we counted 14 beds. We don’t know if there is a baby for each one. We put Alex in his bed so we could take a picture of him in it. Alex was all smiles! It was as if he was so happy to show us his bed and stuff. Plus he was going to get to eat, soon. Did I mention, this kid loves to eat?! We were so relieved to have been able to go in again and get pictures. They aren’t perfect pictures, but they are pictures!!
Well, the caregivers and the doctor did not do a very good job at answering very many questions! That was a bummer… at least we have a few more days to try to get some more answers. They have relinquishment papers, we have been told, but they know nothing about the birth mother. They should at least have a name. Someone had to sign the papers. So we are going to keep trying. We don’t need to know for us, but someday Alex is going to want to know as much as possible.
Today we also took the big flash for the camera. We were getting tired of the dark pictures! It was perfect, who cares how many batteries it uses! Today we got pictures of him doing his chin-ups! There is always something on the desk that he can not have, camera, accordion, etc. so he tries to get them by pulling himself up. So anyways today we put some of his favorite toys up there and sure enough, up he went! With supervision this time! He is really strong!
He discovered if he cries we will respond. Except he would fake cry, and then look at us to see what we would do. It was the funniest thing yet!! We nearly died of laughter!!! He is such a mess! After a few minutes, it got annoying, so we decided to ignore it. Then he did it every time we would actually take out his snacks… so then we would not give him the snack. He stopped it after a while. He is so funny!
October 22, 2006
We decided today we would take a bottle of formula, just a 4 oz one though and give it to him so he wouldn’t be starving!!! Well, I had decided the other day to buy a certain kind of formula in the store, I could read the label, and it said “soy.” Today when I went to get the stuff, they had moved it, and they didn’t have that kind. So I bought a “lactose free” one. Hopefully he is ok with it. He was still trying the faker cry stuff today a little. But we ignored it. It really is so funny. When I pulled out the bottle of milk, he went nuts! He started smacking his lips, a lot more than when he sees the snacks. He was bouncing up and down and then crawled as fast as possible across the room to me. It was the most pitiful display of hunger we have seen from him yet! He thinks he is starving, but what they tell us, is that if they don’t eat it now, they don’t get any when they are hungry, so they eat as fast as they can when they can. He started fussing, because he wanted it so badly! We put him in my lap and made him lay back and relax, which he can not do. He is afraid he won’t get the bottle, he has to make sure he can see it until he gets it in his mouth! Then he sucked like crazy, then I realized I had not changed the nipple on it, and it was a “slow” one. He didn’t seem to care, he just wanted to drink it. It was so sweet, he was so noisy, and we kept saying he sounded like a little piggy! Jerry was wondering if it was normal. He had his little hands made into fists so tight… we kept trying to get him to relax, but this bottle drinking is serious business! But when he was laying there he was just a helpless little baby! When the bottle was emptied he started to cry, we felt bad that we didn’t have more, but we didn’t want to get in trouble with the doctor or anything. He was actually crying, because it was empty. So we held him and then distracted him and he was fine after that. We actually got an extra half and hour with him this morning, because the other family isn’t able to visit on Sunday for some reason. It was nice… he was not trying to get out the door and get food. We had so much fun giving him the bottle that we will do it in the afternoon too! He certainly enjoyed the bottle too! Then we spent time examining a chair… Alex went chair surfing… as you can see in the photo. He hasn’t quite figured out the chairs yet. But he likes them.
We took a bottle again, and do you know that kid instantly crawled toward my bag that I had it in earlier, he was trying to look in there, and was smacking his lips again. He remembers things, especially when it deals with food! We made him wait a while because the water was too hot still. I hadn’t perfected how much heat is lost from the microwave to the babyhouse in a bottle yet. Jerry had to distract him while I got the bottle ready. Then when he heard me shaking that crazy bottle, he went crazy again, laughing and crawling so fast to get to me! Again, he just laid there and drank it down… I put the “fast” nipple on it, but I think I will go back to the slow, because he drinks it so fast and then it is gone and he actually cries, because there is no more. The faster we can distract him after wards the better.
Today we got to go in his group room again! Jerry with the video camera and I with my camera. When we went in, one little girl was crying and crying and crying! I felt so bad. I wanted to pick her up and comfort her. Her little eyes were all red and big tears were coming down her cheeks! She was standing up in the play pen holding on to the bars and just sobbing! Maybe she was hungry. I reminded them that we would take 2 babies! It didn’t do any good. A single caregiver was there and she was feeding another child. He was sitting in a chair and she was sitting in front of him shoveling the food in! All the other babies were in the play area, which consisted of the playpens and some furniture blocking them in. Most of the babies had been sleeping, and had to be woken up so we could come in and see. There was about 10 babies in there, all about the same age as Alex. We went through that room into the bedroom, we counted 14 beds. We don’t know if there is a baby for each one. We put Alex in his bed so we could take a picture of him in it. Alex was all smiles! It was as if he was so happy to show us his bed and stuff. Plus he was going to get to eat, soon. Did I mention, this kid loves to eat?! We were so relieved to have been able to go in again and get pictures. They aren’t perfect pictures, but they are pictures!!
Sunday, October 22, 2006
Pre-Court Day!
October 20, 2006
So today we went to the babyhouse, AGAIN! Alex was happy to take his vitamins and eat some puffs. Then we played with those crazy plastic blocks that we love! Anyways the time goes by too fast!! Today as usual, his favorite caregiver came to get him after the visit and he laughed and got all excited, but today it made me really sad… I wish that we could be taking him with us tomorrow like we planned.
On to Pre-court. We went… it was fine… they asked some easy questions and finally gave us a court date! Not until October 26!! That is next Thursday. We were disappointed, but there is nothing more we can do. So we will continue to visit the babyhouse everyday. We should be able to take custody of Alex on the 26th after court. Then, the plan is for us to leave Uralsk on the 27th and come home on November 1st instead of October 28! Bummer! We were really looking forward to a weekend arrival, because all of our family and friends would be able to meet us when we arrive… oh well. So we will change our flights tonight for the 1st.
We went for our visit and played with the blocks again. Natasha picked up our book from the caregivers and translated for us. Alex was tired today though, he frequently just sat there staring into space. Then he would lean against Jerry and rock back and forth. After a while, we realized, he probably frequently rocks himself to sleep. He never will go to sleep with us around but he was yawning a lot, and leaning on us.
We finally found the Chinese restaurant here in town, so all of us WPA families went tonight. We were there, a young lady who spoke pretty good English was taking our orders, and suddenly the electricity went off! So we waited for a little while to see if it would come back on. It didn’t so we called our drivers and headed over to MacJohn’s.
So today we went to the babyhouse, AGAIN! Alex was happy to take his vitamins and eat some puffs. Then we played with those crazy plastic blocks that we love! Anyways the time goes by too fast!! Today as usual, his favorite caregiver came to get him after the visit and he laughed and got all excited, but today it made me really sad… I wish that we could be taking him with us tomorrow like we planned.
On to Pre-court. We went… it was fine… they asked some easy questions and finally gave us a court date! Not until October 26!! That is next Thursday. We were disappointed, but there is nothing more we can do. So we will continue to visit the babyhouse everyday. We should be able to take custody of Alex on the 26th after court. Then, the plan is for us to leave Uralsk on the 27th and come home on November 1st instead of October 28! Bummer! We were really looking forward to a weekend arrival, because all of our family and friends would be able to meet us when we arrive… oh well. So we will change our flights tonight for the 1st.
We went for our visit and played with the blocks again. Natasha picked up our book from the caregivers and translated for us. Alex was tired today though, he frequently just sat there staring into space. Then he would lean against Jerry and rock back and forth. After a while, we realized, he probably frequently rocks himself to sleep. He never will go to sleep with us around but he was yawning a lot, and leaning on us.
We finally found the Chinese restaurant here in town, so all of us WPA families went tonight. We were there, a young lady who spoke pretty good English was taking our orders, and suddenly the electricity went off! So we waited for a little while to see if it would come back on. It didn’t so we called our drivers and headed over to MacJohn’s.
Friday, October 20, 2006
Day 16...
October 19, 2006
Oh, Yesterday we took some gold fish crackers for Alex, we think he is getting bored with the puffs! So Jerry put the gold fish cracker in Alex’s mouth… he chewed or mashed it around a little bit and then made a yucky faced and out came the goldfish cracker! Jerry was so offended! He can’t believe our kid doesn’t like gold fish crackers! We laughed pretty hard!! Ryleigh will have to teach him a few things when we get home.
So Phillipich picked us up this morning, in his car! He said it was the battery. I don’t know why the radiator “blew up” yesterday, if it was only the battery. But whatever. Alex was fun today, he still says da da da da at me when I get him! It is so cute. He loves us! We gave him the vitamins and his little snack. Then we went straight to playing with these wonderful plastic cubes, rectangles, balls and cones. He has finally discovered the joy of knocking things over. We would stack them as high as we could and he would crawl as fast as he could and knock them over! He was hilarious! It was fun… we played with those most of the time. Once this morning when I caught him crawling away, you know when I “get” him, and he laughs and squeals da da da da, well not only did he squeal the da da stuff, but gave me 4 open mouth, slobbery, baby kisses, right on my mouth! I couldn’t believe it! It was so sweet. At first I thought he was going to bite me, again, but no… just sort of kisses, I guess! At least I like to think of them as kisses! We kiss him enough, he should know how to kiss by now! It was grand!
So after our morning visit, we had lunch with our friends and then came home to meet with Olga and Aliya to go over pre-court for tomorrow. It won’t be too bad, I don’t think. We have to dress up, bring our passports, and our pictures from home and the babyhouse visits. They will ask us questions and we are to make sure that we speak to the judge, not the interpreter when answering the judge’s questions. Then we discussed the cribs we are hoping to purchase for the babyhouse… they are going to look at some more tomorrow. I guess the ones that they said would be ok, are not that high of quality, so we are trying to find higher quality cribs so they will last longer. We really don’t want to buy the babyhouse junk!
When we went out to meet Phillipich to take us over to the babyhouse, he wasn’t there… we finally realized that the other guy Phillipich found to drive us was there instead. I guess Phillipich’s car was having problems again. Poor guy! These guys over here baby their cars! Any where you go you will see guys wiping their cars down with rags or washing them off at the spigots on the side of the streets. I have only seen a couple of women driving here. The cars have a lot of miles on them, Phillipich’s Mercedes has about 280,000, miles or so, but is in very good condition, and drives well. (except for today) The guy today that picked us up had about 190,000 miles on it, a VW Jetta, it doesn’t look very old though, it is in perfect condition! They love the Toyota Land Cruisers! It is funny... there are quite a few of them. Yesterday, I actually saw a Sequoia, same color as mine! I was excited, but it reminded me that I miss, my non-rattling, leather-seated, “luxury” truck. All of the vehicles rattle pretty bad, the roads are awful bumpy though, if our roads were this bumpy, our cars would rattle too. Olga went with us, I guess to talk to the babyhouse director or something.
Natasha met us there. Alex was a disaster today… we played with those plastic blocks again. He walked up and down the chairs a bunch today too. We are trying to encourage the walking… his legs are really (!!) wobbly. It cute though. We also introduced him to the tape measure… we bought a Russian tape measure at the market. So we took it today to measure the length of his feet, to see if we can buy him some shoes here. We should just get him slippers, I mean what does a baby need shoes for? He won’t be walking around outside or anything! I know, I know… they look cute! :) Anyways he had fun with the tape measure, and his feet with the tights and socks on are 11 centimeters long! So hopefully we can locate a pair of shoes that will work! In about the last 10 minutes, Alex was relentless in wanting to crawl toward Natasha, he wanted her to take him back to eat! He was a mess… he crawled over and held onto her, she finally picked him up and he immediately laid his head down on her shoulder, and gave her the puppy dog eyes! We couldn’t believe it! That little actor! Ah! He was trying to get her to take him to get food… so he did that for a couple minutes and then we took him away and distracted him for a while. Until it was time to go! Then his favorite caregiver came for him and he went nuts with happiness! Someday soon that will change!
So tonight we went to the Pushkin Hotel, the couple who flew in with us, also have pre-court tomorrow. So I gave Josh and Jerry haircuts so they will be presentable for the judge tomorrow! Haha! I used my scrapbook scissors! My pink ones!! :) they made a home cooked meal in their room for us, all 6 of us. We had bread, broccoli, rice-a-roni and peirogis. It was really yummy! I guess we are kind of tired of eating out, but it is so much easier than cooking in the apartments, since there really is no prepackaged foods, in our language anyways. We are going to get some pierogis though… :) We took a taxi back and it was about $1.50 from the Pushkin to the Atrium.
Tomorrow is Pre-court!!!!!!! We will find out our final court date tomorrow!!! Yeah!!!!
Oh, Yesterday we took some gold fish crackers for Alex, we think he is getting bored with the puffs! So Jerry put the gold fish cracker in Alex’s mouth… he chewed or mashed it around a little bit and then made a yucky faced and out came the goldfish cracker! Jerry was so offended! He can’t believe our kid doesn’t like gold fish crackers! We laughed pretty hard!! Ryleigh will have to teach him a few things when we get home.
So Phillipich picked us up this morning, in his car! He said it was the battery. I don’t know why the radiator “blew up” yesterday, if it was only the battery. But whatever. Alex was fun today, he still says da da da da at me when I get him! It is so cute. He loves us! We gave him the vitamins and his little snack. Then we went straight to playing with these wonderful plastic cubes, rectangles, balls and cones. He has finally discovered the joy of knocking things over. We would stack them as high as we could and he would crawl as fast as he could and knock them over! He was hilarious! It was fun… we played with those most of the time. Once this morning when I caught him crawling away, you know when I “get” him, and he laughs and squeals da da da da, well not only did he squeal the da da stuff, but gave me 4 open mouth, slobbery, baby kisses, right on my mouth! I couldn’t believe it! It was so sweet. At first I thought he was going to bite me, again, but no… just sort of kisses, I guess! At least I like to think of them as kisses! We kiss him enough, he should know how to kiss by now! It was grand!
So after our morning visit, we had lunch with our friends and then came home to meet with Olga and Aliya to go over pre-court for tomorrow. It won’t be too bad, I don’t think. We have to dress up, bring our passports, and our pictures from home and the babyhouse visits. They will ask us questions and we are to make sure that we speak to the judge, not the interpreter when answering the judge’s questions. Then we discussed the cribs we are hoping to purchase for the babyhouse… they are going to look at some more tomorrow. I guess the ones that they said would be ok, are not that high of quality, so we are trying to find higher quality cribs so they will last longer. We really don’t want to buy the babyhouse junk!
When we went out to meet Phillipich to take us over to the babyhouse, he wasn’t there… we finally realized that the other guy Phillipich found to drive us was there instead. I guess Phillipich’s car was having problems again. Poor guy! These guys over here baby their cars! Any where you go you will see guys wiping their cars down with rags or washing them off at the spigots on the side of the streets. I have only seen a couple of women driving here. The cars have a lot of miles on them, Phillipich’s Mercedes has about 280,000, miles or so, but is in very good condition, and drives well. (except for today) The guy today that picked us up had about 190,000 miles on it, a VW Jetta, it doesn’t look very old though, it is in perfect condition! They love the Toyota Land Cruisers! It is funny... there are quite a few of them. Yesterday, I actually saw a Sequoia, same color as mine! I was excited, but it reminded me that I miss, my non-rattling, leather-seated, “luxury” truck. All of the vehicles rattle pretty bad, the roads are awful bumpy though, if our roads were this bumpy, our cars would rattle too. Olga went with us, I guess to talk to the babyhouse director or something.
Natasha met us there. Alex was a disaster today… we played with those plastic blocks again. He walked up and down the chairs a bunch today too. We are trying to encourage the walking… his legs are really (!!) wobbly. It cute though. We also introduced him to the tape measure… we bought a Russian tape measure at the market. So we took it today to measure the length of his feet, to see if we can buy him some shoes here. We should just get him slippers, I mean what does a baby need shoes for? He won’t be walking around outside or anything! I know, I know… they look cute! :) Anyways he had fun with the tape measure, and his feet with the tights and socks on are 11 centimeters long! So hopefully we can locate a pair of shoes that will work! In about the last 10 minutes, Alex was relentless in wanting to crawl toward Natasha, he wanted her to take him back to eat! He was a mess… he crawled over and held onto her, she finally picked him up and he immediately laid his head down on her shoulder, and gave her the puppy dog eyes! We couldn’t believe it! That little actor! Ah! He was trying to get her to take him to get food… so he did that for a couple minutes and then we took him away and distracted him for a while. Until it was time to go! Then his favorite caregiver came for him and he went nuts with happiness! Someday soon that will change!
So tonight we went to the Pushkin Hotel, the couple who flew in with us, also have pre-court tomorrow. So I gave Josh and Jerry haircuts so they will be presentable for the judge tomorrow! Haha! I used my scrapbook scissors! My pink ones!! :) they made a home cooked meal in their room for us, all 6 of us. We had bread, broccoli, rice-a-roni and peirogis. It was really yummy! I guess we are kind of tired of eating out, but it is so much easier than cooking in the apartments, since there really is no prepackaged foods, in our language anyways. We are going to get some pierogis though… :) We took a taxi back and it was about $1.50 from the Pushkin to the Atrium.
Tomorrow is Pre-court!!!!!!! We will find out our final court date tomorrow!!! Yeah!!!!
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
Day 15!
October 18, 2006
Alex calls me da da da da, when he is really excited that I “caught” him trying to escape. It is more of a squealed da da da da, because he is smiling and laughing at the same time. It is the most adorable thing! Near the end of our visit, he got really cranky, which is new for us… He still has not cried for us. He was trying to escape out the door to go eat and of course I “got” him, but instead of giggling, like normal, he made some faker cry sounds… At least they sounded faker-ish, I told him no and we took him back to the sheet and calmed him for a while. We gave him some more puffs and just held him. He is pretty content just sitting on us, most of the time. He was really hungry though. It frustrates me that we can not feed him when he is hungry. You know how babies get when they are truly hungry! Those puff things just don’t quite fill the tummy. I was glad (for him) when the caregiver finally came and got him, it was his favorite one too. He was so happy this morning; he actually started laughing, after being all grumpy for us. Whatever they feed him, he must love it! It is such a bummer that he associates us leaving him with getting to eat next! Grrr…
We came home and waited for the bucks and Angus’ to call us, but then realized that they may have gone to the big market today. So we headed over to MacJohn’s to have lunch. By the way, Our typical lunch there is a Greek salad, and a margarita pizza, sometimes Jerry gets vanilla ice cream and an orange Fanta, to make a orange cream float! They all think he is funny, but they all love us. After lunch we headed to the Russian Bazaar. You have to go through the Chinese Bazaar to get there… it is a huge bazaar. We finally figured out where to go. I bought 2 hats today. And I tried on some more boots! I think I will give up on the stylish boots… maybe I will go with the Eskimo style ones… The large calf thing is just too humiliating, I can’t do this much more. Maybe I will just try to buy some high heels instead!
This afternoon we took him the “cookies” that we got at the store. They were so messy that we decided against them for now… maybe later when he is in a high chair with a bib… but that stuff was all over the place. He loves that crazy fridge farm set… he goes straight to the bag once he realizes it isn’t around. So we get it all out and he just loves those little animal pieces. Can’t wait to get him the alphabet one. That will be fun! He tries so hard to crawl across the room as fast as possible and get the accordion; the music teacher always leaves it in there on the floor. So we put it up on the desk in there. Smarty pants that he is, he crawled to the desk, pulled himself up to it, of course he is just shorter than the desk, but he can just reach the top. He held on with his killer grip and did a pull up! All the way up so his chin was to the desk top. We couldn’t believe it!!! And he did it several times! Not only was the accordion up there but the video camera as well, so there were lots of incentives up there! We all laughed very hard, including Natasha, our interpreter. While we were over playing at the desk, he discovered the flat wall. He can stand up against it and bang on it with his hands! And he can use it to steady himself as he walks along it to the rocking horses. He also loves to be “rolled.” Sometimes we just roll him over and over on the floor. He loves it! Jerry also holds him to his chest and then rolls on the floor with him, of course when he rolls over baby he has to hold himself up, so he doesn’t smash him. It is pretty entertaining. Alex always smiles and usually wants to keep rolling, but they run out of floor space. Ha-ha! We have so much fun.
Alex calls me da da da da, when he is really excited that I “caught” him trying to escape. It is more of a squealed da da da da, because he is smiling and laughing at the same time. It is the most adorable thing! Near the end of our visit, he got really cranky, which is new for us… He still has not cried for us. He was trying to escape out the door to go eat and of course I “got” him, but instead of giggling, like normal, he made some faker cry sounds… At least they sounded faker-ish, I told him no and we took him back to the sheet and calmed him for a while. We gave him some more puffs and just held him. He is pretty content just sitting on us, most of the time. He was really hungry though. It frustrates me that we can not feed him when he is hungry. You know how babies get when they are truly hungry! Those puff things just don’t quite fill the tummy. I was glad (for him) when the caregiver finally came and got him, it was his favorite one too. He was so happy this morning; he actually started laughing, after being all grumpy for us. Whatever they feed him, he must love it! It is such a bummer that he associates us leaving him with getting to eat next! Grrr…
We came home and waited for the bucks and Angus’ to call us, but then realized that they may have gone to the big market today. So we headed over to MacJohn’s to have lunch. By the way, Our typical lunch there is a Greek salad, and a margarita pizza, sometimes Jerry gets vanilla ice cream and an orange Fanta, to make a orange cream float! They all think he is funny, but they all love us. After lunch we headed to the Russian Bazaar. You have to go through the Chinese Bazaar to get there… it is a huge bazaar. We finally figured out where to go. I bought 2 hats today. And I tried on some more boots! I think I will give up on the stylish boots… maybe I will go with the Eskimo style ones… The large calf thing is just too humiliating, I can’t do this much more. Maybe I will just try to buy some high heels instead!
This afternoon we took him the “cookies” that we got at the store. They were so messy that we decided against them for now… maybe later when he is in a high chair with a bib… but that stuff was all over the place. He loves that crazy fridge farm set… he goes straight to the bag once he realizes it isn’t around. So we get it all out and he just loves those little animal pieces. Can’t wait to get him the alphabet one. That will be fun! He tries so hard to crawl across the room as fast as possible and get the accordion; the music teacher always leaves it in there on the floor. So we put it up on the desk in there. Smarty pants that he is, he crawled to the desk, pulled himself up to it, of course he is just shorter than the desk, but he can just reach the top. He held on with his killer grip and did a pull up! All the way up so his chin was to the desk top. We couldn’t believe it!!! And he did it several times! Not only was the accordion up there but the video camera as well, so there were lots of incentives up there! We all laughed very hard, including Natasha, our interpreter. While we were over playing at the desk, he discovered the flat wall. He can stand up against it and bang on it with his hands! And he can use it to steady himself as he walks along it to the rocking horses. He also loves to be “rolled.” Sometimes we just roll him over and over on the floor. He loves it! Jerry also holds him to his chest and then rolls on the floor with him, of course when he rolls over baby he has to hold himself up, so he doesn’t smash him. It is pretty entertaining. Alex always smiles and usually wants to keep rolling, but they run out of floor space. Ha-ha! We have so much fun.
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
DAY 14!!!!!
October 17,2006
WOOHOO!!!!! Today is day 14 of visitation! Olga is going to try to turn in our papers to get court for Friday. We will see what happens.
We went to the babyhouse and waited for the German families to clear out. They brought in Alex pretty quick. He was as excited as ever to see us. He was loud and full of laughs today. We tried to take another family photo today! I will try to post a couple of our favorites! Alex was so noisy today, he kept squealing, da da da da da! It was quite cute and of course I am sure it doesn’t mean what we mean with it, but it at least sounds like it! We will see if he continues it later today and tomorrow. He kept crawling toward the tri-pod. So finally at the end we took it down and let him look it over a little. He was so excited he was “dancing” swaying back and forth while he was checking it out. Now if we would just let him get a hold of the camera. Jerry pulled one of the tambourines out of the glass case today and let him bang on it for a little while, he loved that! But I was the party pooper and made him put it back, I didn’t want them to break it, since Alex can hit sooo hard and he had his little hammer in his hand! Alex is going to love going back to a bottle and formula when we get him… He lays back and sucks the vitamins down, a whole milliliter!! He makes us laugh so much and we kiss him an awful lot! You would think he would get tired of it, but he doesn’t seem to. He was crawling like a maniac today! His favorite caregiver came to get him again and he went crazy again. He smiles all the way to his door.
We are meeting the Bucks and the Angus’ for lunch today at the Atrium, MacJohn’s. :) We headed over at about 12:30 and they were there, we had our lunch. Then Aliya met us and we went to the Bazaar (Open) Market. We walked around for a while and bought some bananas and a couple other things at the produce area. There were huge bags of onions and potatoes! I think that is the staple here. Of course we are starting to smell like the people here now, too, because we are eating the same stuff! Haha!
We rushed back to meet Phillipich, to take us to see Alex again. He was quiet this afternoon. Jerry got one of the toys down from the shelf in there, it was a “Lego” dump truck. The dump box was full of huge Lego looking blocks. He loved that! He played with that for quite a while. Then he started those escape tactics of his. So we kept “getting” him. He would laugh and lunge at us when we got in front of him. He loves to be held facing out. He can just sit on my hip for a long time and just look around or play with his toys. Then he got the plastic packaging from the fridge farm and wanted to crawl the floor while holding one piece in each hand, it makes great noise though! We just hate having to hand him over at the end of the day! Its not as bad after first visit, because we know we will be back in a few hours. I was thinking today, our life is pretty easy right now… we don’t have to change diapers, feed him, bath him (ok so we clean out his ears regularly), clothe him, basically we just come and play. However, we would give just about anything to be able to bring him home with us and do all those other things for him! We love him so much!!!!!
We met with Olga this afternoon. She took our paperwork in to the court today. The court is so busy right now that we can’t get pre-court until Friday, the 20th. They could not even set a day for final court yet, it is so full. But Olga gave our paperwork to the judge, and hopefully he will be able to work us in the first of next week! We are praying really hard for final court on Monday. If that doesn’t happen we will most likely not be home on the 28th… we will see. That will a pain in the bahooney! We will have to change our tickets and stuff! And remember we can not take custody of Alex until final court! Ahhh! We just want to get him!
We are trying to locate the Chinese restaurant that we have read about here. But so far no one can tell us where to go. We are going to meet up with the Bucks and Angus families for dinner again. We are going to call our friends at the Pushkin and see if they want to join us, too. Holly and Josh should have found out about their pre-court today too. So we want to check on them and see how it went.
WOOHOO!!!!! Today is day 14 of visitation! Olga is going to try to turn in our papers to get court for Friday. We will see what happens.
We went to the babyhouse and waited for the German families to clear out. They brought in Alex pretty quick. He was as excited as ever to see us. He was loud and full of laughs today. We tried to take another family photo today! I will try to post a couple of our favorites! Alex was so noisy today, he kept squealing, da da da da da! It was quite cute and of course I am sure it doesn’t mean what we mean with it, but it at least sounds like it! We will see if he continues it later today and tomorrow. He kept crawling toward the tri-pod. So finally at the end we took it down and let him look it over a little. He was so excited he was “dancing” swaying back and forth while he was checking it out. Now if we would just let him get a hold of the camera. Jerry pulled one of the tambourines out of the glass case today and let him bang on it for a little while, he loved that! But I was the party pooper and made him put it back, I didn’t want them to break it, since Alex can hit sooo hard and he had his little hammer in his hand! Alex is going to love going back to a bottle and formula when we get him… He lays back and sucks the vitamins down, a whole milliliter!! He makes us laugh so much and we kiss him an awful lot! You would think he would get tired of it, but he doesn’t seem to. He was crawling like a maniac today! His favorite caregiver came to get him again and he went crazy again. He smiles all the way to his door.
We are meeting the Bucks and the Angus’ for lunch today at the Atrium, MacJohn’s. :) We headed over at about 12:30 and they were there, we had our lunch. Then Aliya met us and we went to the Bazaar (Open) Market. We walked around for a while and bought some bananas and a couple other things at the produce area. There were huge bags of onions and potatoes! I think that is the staple here. Of course we are starting to smell like the people here now, too, because we are eating the same stuff! Haha!
We rushed back to meet Phillipich, to take us to see Alex again. He was quiet this afternoon. Jerry got one of the toys down from the shelf in there, it was a “Lego” dump truck. The dump box was full of huge Lego looking blocks. He loved that! He played with that for quite a while. Then he started those escape tactics of his. So we kept “getting” him. He would laugh and lunge at us when we got in front of him. He loves to be held facing out. He can just sit on my hip for a long time and just look around or play with his toys. Then he got the plastic packaging from the fridge farm and wanted to crawl the floor while holding one piece in each hand, it makes great noise though! We just hate having to hand him over at the end of the day! Its not as bad after first visit, because we know we will be back in a few hours. I was thinking today, our life is pretty easy right now… we don’t have to change diapers, feed him, bath him (ok so we clean out his ears regularly), clothe him, basically we just come and play. However, we would give just about anything to be able to bring him home with us and do all those other things for him! We love him so much!!!!!
We met with Olga this afternoon. She took our paperwork in to the court today. The court is so busy right now that we can’t get pre-court until Friday, the 20th. They could not even set a day for final court yet, it is so full. But Olga gave our paperwork to the judge, and hopefully he will be able to work us in the first of next week! We are praying really hard for final court on Monday. If that doesn’t happen we will most likely not be home on the 28th… we will see. That will a pain in the bahooney! We will have to change our tickets and stuff! And remember we can not take custody of Alex until final court! Ahhh! We just want to get him!
We are trying to locate the Chinese restaurant that we have read about here. But so far no one can tell us where to go. We are going to meet up with the Bucks and Angus families for dinner again. We are going to call our friends at the Pushkin and see if they want to join us, too. Holly and Josh should have found out about their pre-court today too. So we want to check on them and see how it went.
Photos.
ok. last night i ran out of internet time... so here are the pictures from yesterday's post!
Warning!!! :)
WARNING!!! Anyone coming to Uralsk on the Monday early morning flight!!! There is a layover! Some little town, by the Caspian Sea. When you get off the plane, take the plastic card they offer you at the bottom of the steps, you will need this to get back on! No one told us that there was a layover, so we were taking pictures like crazy, thinking this is where our baby was from, not! Anyways hopefully this will help in some confusion. You can’t always understand the English announcements on the plane, that I am sure they make about the layover. Just so you know!
We got off and didn't take the card, and the families who got here yesterday did the same thing!!! Hahaha! You will have to dig out your original tickets from Almaty in order to prove that you belong back on that plane! :)
We got off and didn't take the card, and the families who got here yesterday did the same thing!!! Hahaha! You will have to dig out your original tickets from Almaty in order to prove that you belong back on that plane! :)
Monday, October 16, 2006
Getting You All Caught Up!
October 14, 2006
Our room was much warmer last night, we put the heater in our room and shut the door. Woohoo!! Our blankets are still a funny story, but we survive. We have a king size bed (sort of), but the blankets are not big enough to fit the bed so we each have our own blanket, which is weird. It’s funny.
Aliya met us at the babyhouse and she took the diapers and clothes back in to the caregivers. Then they change him and bring him out to us. What is weird is today, they did not put his shirt on him. I brought a white onsie (baby underwear) with long sleeves and then another onsie with stripes (his shirt) and they brought him in the onsie and the red jacket he had on the day before. It was weird… finally I convinced Aliya to go back in there and get his shirt. So we got to put a shirt on him!!! It was kind of exciting. He is so small without all those layers and layers of clothing on him! We can hardly wait to actually dress him our selves. We have not seen any skin on this kid except, his hands and head! Our friends Bill and Robyn said that they undresses they’re baby to look him over. But I haven’t had the heart to undress him yet, it is usually a little cold in that room. Plus, it would be just my luck the doctor would walk in when I had him all naked… and take him away because I was letting him get cold… that means you are a bad parent here in Kazakhstan
Ok! Has anyone had to get a notary on anything here in Kaz? This was crazy! We had to write a request to the Uralsk Minister of Education to see our sponsor daughter Alia. Then we found out that the interpreter that translates it to Russian had to have her translation Notarized! Not only that, but the interpreter had to have a degree and a diploma to show the notary. Since Aliya is still in college she had to find a friend of hers to come and sign the translation. We went to 3 different Notary offices. Every one’s computer was broken so they could not print the document from the disc that Aliya had. Finally we just rewrote the letter in front off the notary, by hand. First the notary typed some stuff on her computer with one finger on each hand; it was the peck method that I used to do. Ha-ha! Then while Aliya is writing the translation down, the notary starts getting out a needle and thread. I was thinking, ok she must have lost a button on her blouse or something and while she is waiting for us to finish this letter she is getting her needle and thread ready. Cool, she is a multi-tasker. NOT!! Ok! She took our documents and sewed the edge of them together with that crazy needle and thread! Then she took a triangle piece of paper, put some liquid glue on it and stuck it down over the knot she made in the thread, then she stamped 2 stamps on it and once on her typed document and signed it! It took like 10 minutes just to do her part! Serious legal document! It was hilarious! Jerry and I nearly died of laughter when we got out of the office and back in the car. The needle and thread would never fly at home, too high of liability! They might prick themselves! We had never seen anything like it! And the whole thing cost a whole 50 tenge (about 40cents)!!!!!
Then Aliya took us to the souvenir shop. They have beautiful, traditional Kazakh “dolls” and little miniature yurts. Now we know where it is, so we can go back! Then we bought medicine for the babyhouse. We had to go to two different pharmacy stores to find the whole $25 worth of medicine that they requested. We had lunch in our apartment. Woohoo! Pasta again!
We got to the babyhouse and we had just started to get our toys and stuff out when we were asked if we would mind going into the Doctor’s office for a little while. They had 3 couples there to choose children. These couples were from Germany. So we sat in the office trying to occupy Alex. Who, of course, discovered the wonderful desk was really good for banging his toys on; really hard and loud!! We didn’t get as many pictures today, we were busy trying to keep Alex out of the Doctor’s stuff. We finally went back in our play/music room.
We went to Zhas Dauren to pick up Alia. We gave her brother the soccer ball that Jerry bought at the big market. He was happy, he had Jerry and Phillipich sign it. We brought Alia back to town with us and took her to eat at good ol’ MacJohn’s! She had never had French fries before, so of course we had to order those for her. She liked them. She is a mess! She is so stinkin’ shy! It was hard to get her to talk. We found out that she also has a sister at ZD. We don’t know her “story” yet, but guess it is a crazy one, since she did not want to share it with us yet! We had to make sure she was back at Zhas Dauren by 7:30 pm. Jerry sent her home with 25 of our Coconut Puffs.
We came home and watched 2 movies, in English!! In our warmish room. Aliya had some movies from the US, she lent us.
October 15, 2006
Today we learned which children were chosen yesterday by the German families. I think they are about 3 year olds, one little girl that we see playing on the playground frequently, she is Caucasian, but has the biggest little cheeks. She actually reminds me of Kristyn. Same coloring and just giggled and giggled when Jerry was playing with them, peek-a-boo, outside one day. One little boy that I had actually noticed the other day, who is Kazakh and soooo cute with his little bowl-style haircut and another little Caucasian boy that I actually don’t remember seeing before, both were chosen!! They were there playing in our room when we got there, and had to make them pack up and leave. We gave Alex his usual vitamins and snack. He went a little wild today though. He was ravenous. He was grabbing the puffs by the hand full if he could and shoving them all in his mouth at once. He was super impatient and seemed a little snippy. We just kept playing happy stuff with him and he was fine, but we did almost see him cry today. He was crawling up and over Jerry as usual and lost his balance and fell nose first into Jerry. He was ok though, we comforted him a little and then he kept going! I think he might be fighting a cold or something. He sneezes several times every day and his nose is stuffy. Other than that he seems fine and healthy!
Luba met us at the babyhouse after our visit and then we drove to the apartment. We talked for a while and showed her some pictures of Alex and pictures from home and stuff. Then I made scrapbook pages for her and Aliya. We thought Aliya was going to freeze to death in here, she was so cold, she decided that we need another heater, so she was going to tell Olga or something. Luba loved all her make-up we brought her. Hopefully they are in the right colors.
I got to see Alex’s room today. After our visit, Aliya said we could sneak back into Alex’s group room and see. But when we were ready to go in, only one of us could go, so I went with the video camera. I had forgotten my camera at the apartment in the hubbub of the afternoon with Luba. So I took my shoes back off and in we went. Straight through to Alex’s bed, it was #3 and the closest to the door. So, hopefully, it really was his bed and not just because it was the closest to the door, (I did not see the blanket that I left with him there) because I got to go no farther. The caregiver suddenly started shooing me out, except I didn’t understand her and was standing there trying to look around. I wanted to see where he lived for almost 12 months and where he plays, eats, etc. No, I did not get to see any of it… Really. Briefly I saw hot pink curtains in the bedroom and lots of cribs. Each one was the same, with the same blanket in it. When I turned around and came out of the bedroom, we walked through their play room. There were a large round play pens on the floor with babies in them. I didn’t have time to look at the babies… they were smaller, and all laying on their stomachs except one, who was very small, but standing, holding onto the railing. He looked like a special needs child. On the other side of the playpens was open floor with a piece of carpet on the floor, I think there were some shelves, with some toys on them, but I am not sure, the caregiver was still carrying on behind me, I didn’t want to upset her, so I was trying to hurry and still see as much as possible. Opposite all of that was a kitchen looking area (I think), there was a short table with chairs around it, and bowls of food on the table, I saw bread rolls (for sure) and not sure what else was there. Then out I went again! I couldn’t believe it! They didn’t even tell me about the area or anything. The video didn’t really catch much, because I was too busy turning my head to try to see everything I could. When I came out, I was so upset, I could just cry! I was mad that the Director won’t let us go in and see everywhere he has lived, I was angry because I forgot my camera and I would have done better with the camera than the crazy video camera. I was angry because Jerry didn’t get to go in and see it all, and I have a feeling that it is not really his bed that we saw, because his blanket was not there. I did not even see Alex in there. Who knows where he was! I was angry because Alex is going to want to see where he lived someday and I won’t be able to show him, much. Maybe someone else who has been here has pictures that we can get later.
Our phone was not working today. We wanted to have dinner with our friends that stay at the Pushkin, so we walked over there, hoping that they were hoe when we got there. It was a long walk and it was super cold out! They were there! We went to their room for a while and chatted. We all decided to try the Camelot restaurant. We got a taxi. It was only 200 tenge for a 7 minute ride, about $1.50. Oh my goodness!! That is one nice restaurant. Every one of us got mashed potatoes! We were so excited, and they have an English menu. We had such a nice time. There was only one other couple that came in while we were there. Of course they were smokers so we thought we were going to have a night off from the smokers, but alas! NOT! At least there was only 2 of them and they were on the opposite side of the room. It was about 10pm by the time we left and when we walked outside, it was SNOWING! It was so beautiful! It was a wet snow, but it was snow! In Kazakhstan!!!!! We were excited. Jerry and I walked home, and the other couples got a taxi back to their Hotel.
October 16, 2006
This morning while I was in the shower, I guess, Misha brought us a microwave and another heater. After my shower Jerry suddenly says, “we have ten minutes till we have to leave!” I guess we woke up late, and I didn’t even look at the clock! Ahhh! So we rushed around and met Phillipich at the entrance to the apartment building. When we got to the babyhouse, Natasha was waiting outside the room for us. She is our new interpreter. She seems very sweet and is about 8 months pregnant! The German families were playing in the room when we got there again. The little Caucasian girl with the big cheeks was crying as they made her leave her new mama! Poor little girl. So they finally brought Alex in to us. He was wearing this long sleeved green fleece thing over his onsie and under the fleece lined shirt I sent in for him… Who knows? The other day they brought him out in just the onsie and the red jacket that he has. A little inconsistent, so I am not sure how many clothes they really want us to put on him! He was a little somber today, but still played and ate his crazy vitamins like a pro! We played as usual and ate some snacks. He was not sure about this new interpreter, though. He didn’t try to crawl away today. And when it was time for him to go back to his group, he wasn’t nearly as excited as usual. We tried his shoes on him again… I think he has wide feet because they are not that long, but it is really hard to get the shoes on him. Then the shoes are bulging. I don’t think he likes them very much. They are probably his first pair of shoes, though, so he will have to get used to them.
We went to the Atrium for lunch. We stopped at the grocery store first to get a few things, like cat food… we have a soft spot for all the kitties that hang out on our garbage cans. We put some garbage in them on the way to the store and as soon as we threw the bags in the cats all headed toward the new garbage to see if they could find any food. Yeah so we bought a 5 pound bag to dump out there on the ground for them. When we got back to MacJohn’s for lunch our friends from the Pushkin were there, so we ate with them. About half way through lunch a lady came in and looked at me and then asked if I was Christel! It was the Bucks and their travel partners! With Aliya! We chatted with them for a little while and then they were off to see the Minister of Education, and then to go to the babyhouse to choose their children. Hopefully we will talk to them tonight, and see how it went and see pictures of their kids!
When we arrive at the babyhouse in the afternoon, usually we see our friends, Bill and Robyn. They have their visit with their baby just before us in the afternoon (and just after us in the morning). Their little guy is 8-9 months old and so sweet. He is Kazakh, too. He has really dark eyes and his little hair sticks up too. He is such a cutie! We are excited that they are here now and at the same babyhouse as us. They live about 2.5 hours north of us, so we can visit each other and the kids can be friends growing up, which is just so neat!!!
Alex was very happy to see us today. We played for a while and had our snacks. His favorite puffs are the peach ones! I think he could eat those all day if we let him. Our friend Holly, at the Pushkin says her friends all call them (the puffs) “baby crack” she might be right. Ha-ha! Anyways he was smiling and happy this afternoon. Laughing a bunch and playing with his water bottle. He loves to chew on the top of the bottle. (Don’t worry, Heather, we check to make sure it is on tightly everyday!!!) Anyways, his favorite caregiver came today to pick him up; he went nuts, jumping up and down, laughing, and making loud baby noises! Crazy kid! Just when we think he wants to stay with us! :) He is just amazing; we can hardly wait to just keep him!!! I know it will be sad for that caregiver, and probably Alex, too, and I am sure I will cry as well, especially if that caregiver is sad.
I guess it really does make me happy that he loves her so much. (Kind of jealous too!) That tells me that he has been well taken care of and is attached to her. She is a cute one too, she always smiles when she comes to get him, unlike some of the other women, they just kind of grab him and carry him off, like it is “just a job” to them. They probably (hopefully) have other babies that they love more. Although I am not sure how that is possible!!!!! He is the sweetest baby there!
Our room was much warmer last night, we put the heater in our room and shut the door. Woohoo!! Our blankets are still a funny story, but we survive. We have a king size bed (sort of), but the blankets are not big enough to fit the bed so we each have our own blanket, which is weird. It’s funny.
Aliya met us at the babyhouse and she took the diapers and clothes back in to the caregivers. Then they change him and bring him out to us. What is weird is today, they did not put his shirt on him. I brought a white onsie (baby underwear) with long sleeves and then another onsie with stripes (his shirt) and they brought him in the onsie and the red jacket he had on the day before. It was weird… finally I convinced Aliya to go back in there and get his shirt. So we got to put a shirt on him!!! It was kind of exciting. He is so small without all those layers and layers of clothing on him! We can hardly wait to actually dress him our selves. We have not seen any skin on this kid except, his hands and head! Our friends Bill and Robyn said that they undresses they’re baby to look him over. But I haven’t had the heart to undress him yet, it is usually a little cold in that room. Plus, it would be just my luck the doctor would walk in when I had him all naked… and take him away because I was letting him get cold… that means you are a bad parent here in Kazakhstan
Ok! Has anyone had to get a notary on anything here in Kaz? This was crazy! We had to write a request to the Uralsk Minister of Education to see our sponsor daughter Alia. Then we found out that the interpreter that translates it to Russian had to have her translation Notarized! Not only that, but the interpreter had to have a degree and a diploma to show the notary. Since Aliya is still in college she had to find a friend of hers to come and sign the translation. We went to 3 different Notary offices. Every one’s computer was broken so they could not print the document from the disc that Aliya had. Finally we just rewrote the letter in front off the notary, by hand. First the notary typed some stuff on her computer with one finger on each hand; it was the peck method that I used to do. Ha-ha! Then while Aliya is writing the translation down, the notary starts getting out a needle and thread. I was thinking, ok she must have lost a button on her blouse or something and while she is waiting for us to finish this letter she is getting her needle and thread ready. Cool, she is a multi-tasker. NOT!! Ok! She took our documents and sewed the edge of them together with that crazy needle and thread! Then she took a triangle piece of paper, put some liquid glue on it and stuck it down over the knot she made in the thread, then she stamped 2 stamps on it and once on her typed document and signed it! It took like 10 minutes just to do her part! Serious legal document! It was hilarious! Jerry and I nearly died of laughter when we got out of the office and back in the car. The needle and thread would never fly at home, too high of liability! They might prick themselves! We had never seen anything like it! And the whole thing cost a whole 50 tenge (about 40cents)!!!!!
Then Aliya took us to the souvenir shop. They have beautiful, traditional Kazakh “dolls” and little miniature yurts. Now we know where it is, so we can go back! Then we bought medicine for the babyhouse. We had to go to two different pharmacy stores to find the whole $25 worth of medicine that they requested. We had lunch in our apartment. Woohoo! Pasta again!
We got to the babyhouse and we had just started to get our toys and stuff out when we were asked if we would mind going into the Doctor’s office for a little while. They had 3 couples there to choose children. These couples were from Germany. So we sat in the office trying to occupy Alex. Who, of course, discovered the wonderful desk was really good for banging his toys on; really hard and loud!! We didn’t get as many pictures today, we were busy trying to keep Alex out of the Doctor’s stuff. We finally went back in our play/music room.
We went to Zhas Dauren to pick up Alia. We gave her brother the soccer ball that Jerry bought at the big market. He was happy, he had Jerry and Phillipich sign it. We brought Alia back to town with us and took her to eat at good ol’ MacJohn’s! She had never had French fries before, so of course we had to order those for her. She liked them. She is a mess! She is so stinkin’ shy! It was hard to get her to talk. We found out that she also has a sister at ZD. We don’t know her “story” yet, but guess it is a crazy one, since she did not want to share it with us yet! We had to make sure she was back at Zhas Dauren by 7:30 pm. Jerry sent her home with 25 of our Coconut Puffs.
We came home and watched 2 movies, in English!! In our warmish room. Aliya had some movies from the US, she lent us.
October 15, 2006
Today we learned which children were chosen yesterday by the German families. I think they are about 3 year olds, one little girl that we see playing on the playground frequently, she is Caucasian, but has the biggest little cheeks. She actually reminds me of Kristyn. Same coloring and just giggled and giggled when Jerry was playing with them, peek-a-boo, outside one day. One little boy that I had actually noticed the other day, who is Kazakh and soooo cute with his little bowl-style haircut and another little Caucasian boy that I actually don’t remember seeing before, both were chosen!! They were there playing in our room when we got there, and had to make them pack up and leave. We gave Alex his usual vitamins and snack. He went a little wild today though. He was ravenous. He was grabbing the puffs by the hand full if he could and shoving them all in his mouth at once. He was super impatient and seemed a little snippy. We just kept playing happy stuff with him and he was fine, but we did almost see him cry today. He was crawling up and over Jerry as usual and lost his balance and fell nose first into Jerry. He was ok though, we comforted him a little and then he kept going! I think he might be fighting a cold or something. He sneezes several times every day and his nose is stuffy. Other than that he seems fine and healthy!
Luba met us at the babyhouse after our visit and then we drove to the apartment. We talked for a while and showed her some pictures of Alex and pictures from home and stuff. Then I made scrapbook pages for her and Aliya. We thought Aliya was going to freeze to death in here, she was so cold, she decided that we need another heater, so she was going to tell Olga or something. Luba loved all her make-up we brought her. Hopefully they are in the right colors.
I got to see Alex’s room today. After our visit, Aliya said we could sneak back into Alex’s group room and see. But when we were ready to go in, only one of us could go, so I went with the video camera. I had forgotten my camera at the apartment in the hubbub of the afternoon with Luba. So I took my shoes back off and in we went. Straight through to Alex’s bed, it was #3 and the closest to the door. So, hopefully, it really was his bed and not just because it was the closest to the door, (I did not see the blanket that I left with him there) because I got to go no farther. The caregiver suddenly started shooing me out, except I didn’t understand her and was standing there trying to look around. I wanted to see where he lived for almost 12 months and where he plays, eats, etc. No, I did not get to see any of it… Really. Briefly I saw hot pink curtains in the bedroom and lots of cribs. Each one was the same, with the same blanket in it. When I turned around and came out of the bedroom, we walked through their play room. There were a large round play pens on the floor with babies in them. I didn’t have time to look at the babies… they were smaller, and all laying on their stomachs except one, who was very small, but standing, holding onto the railing. He looked like a special needs child. On the other side of the playpens was open floor with a piece of carpet on the floor, I think there were some shelves, with some toys on them, but I am not sure, the caregiver was still carrying on behind me, I didn’t want to upset her, so I was trying to hurry and still see as much as possible. Opposite all of that was a kitchen looking area (I think), there was a short table with chairs around it, and bowls of food on the table, I saw bread rolls (for sure) and not sure what else was there. Then out I went again! I couldn’t believe it! They didn’t even tell me about the area or anything. The video didn’t really catch much, because I was too busy turning my head to try to see everything I could. When I came out, I was so upset, I could just cry! I was mad that the Director won’t let us go in and see everywhere he has lived, I was angry because I forgot my camera and I would have done better with the camera than the crazy video camera. I was angry because Jerry didn’t get to go in and see it all, and I have a feeling that it is not really his bed that we saw, because his blanket was not there. I did not even see Alex in there. Who knows where he was! I was angry because Alex is going to want to see where he lived someday and I won’t be able to show him, much. Maybe someone else who has been here has pictures that we can get later.
Our phone was not working today. We wanted to have dinner with our friends that stay at the Pushkin, so we walked over there, hoping that they were hoe when we got there. It was a long walk and it was super cold out! They were there! We went to their room for a while and chatted. We all decided to try the Camelot restaurant. We got a taxi. It was only 200 tenge for a 7 minute ride, about $1.50. Oh my goodness!! That is one nice restaurant. Every one of us got mashed potatoes! We were so excited, and they have an English menu. We had such a nice time. There was only one other couple that came in while we were there. Of course they were smokers so we thought we were going to have a night off from the smokers, but alas! NOT! At least there was only 2 of them and they were on the opposite side of the room. It was about 10pm by the time we left and when we walked outside, it was SNOWING! It was so beautiful! It was a wet snow, but it was snow! In Kazakhstan!!!!! We were excited. Jerry and I walked home, and the other couples got a taxi back to their Hotel.
October 16, 2006
This morning while I was in the shower, I guess, Misha brought us a microwave and another heater. After my shower Jerry suddenly says, “we have ten minutes till we have to leave!” I guess we woke up late, and I didn’t even look at the clock! Ahhh! So we rushed around and met Phillipich at the entrance to the apartment building. When we got to the babyhouse, Natasha was waiting outside the room for us. She is our new interpreter. She seems very sweet and is about 8 months pregnant! The German families were playing in the room when we got there again. The little Caucasian girl with the big cheeks was crying as they made her leave her new mama! Poor little girl. So they finally brought Alex in to us. He was wearing this long sleeved green fleece thing over his onsie and under the fleece lined shirt I sent in for him… Who knows? The other day they brought him out in just the onsie and the red jacket that he has. A little inconsistent, so I am not sure how many clothes they really want us to put on him! He was a little somber today, but still played and ate his crazy vitamins like a pro! We played as usual and ate some snacks. He was not sure about this new interpreter, though. He didn’t try to crawl away today. And when it was time for him to go back to his group, he wasn’t nearly as excited as usual. We tried his shoes on him again… I think he has wide feet because they are not that long, but it is really hard to get the shoes on him. Then the shoes are bulging. I don’t think he likes them very much. They are probably his first pair of shoes, though, so he will have to get used to them.
We went to the Atrium for lunch. We stopped at the grocery store first to get a few things, like cat food… we have a soft spot for all the kitties that hang out on our garbage cans. We put some garbage in them on the way to the store and as soon as we threw the bags in the cats all headed toward the new garbage to see if they could find any food. Yeah so we bought a 5 pound bag to dump out there on the ground for them. When we got back to MacJohn’s for lunch our friends from the Pushkin were there, so we ate with them. About half way through lunch a lady came in and looked at me and then asked if I was Christel! It was the Bucks and their travel partners! With Aliya! We chatted with them for a little while and then they were off to see the Minister of Education, and then to go to the babyhouse to choose their children. Hopefully we will talk to them tonight, and see how it went and see pictures of their kids!
When we arrive at the babyhouse in the afternoon, usually we see our friends, Bill and Robyn. They have their visit with their baby just before us in the afternoon (and just after us in the morning). Their little guy is 8-9 months old and so sweet. He is Kazakh, too. He has really dark eyes and his little hair sticks up too. He is such a cutie! We are excited that they are here now and at the same babyhouse as us. They live about 2.5 hours north of us, so we can visit each other and the kids can be friends growing up, which is just so neat!!!
Alex was very happy to see us today. We played for a while and had our snacks. His favorite puffs are the peach ones! I think he could eat those all day if we let him. Our friend Holly, at the Pushkin says her friends all call them (the puffs) “baby crack” she might be right. Ha-ha! Anyways he was smiling and happy this afternoon. Laughing a bunch and playing with his water bottle. He loves to chew on the top of the bottle. (Don’t worry, Heather, we check to make sure it is on tightly everyday!!!) Anyways, his favorite caregiver came today to pick him up; he went nuts, jumping up and down, laughing, and making loud baby noises! Crazy kid! Just when we think he wants to stay with us! :) He is just amazing; we can hardly wait to just keep him!!! I know it will be sad for that caregiver, and probably Alex, too, and I am sure I will cry as well, especially if that caregiver is sad.
I guess it really does make me happy that he loves her so much. (Kind of jealous too!) That tells me that he has been well taken care of and is attached to her. She is a cute one too, she always smiles when she comes to get him, unlike some of the other women, they just kind of grab him and carry him off, like it is “just a job” to them. They probably (hopefully) have other babies that they love more. Although I am not sure how that is possible!!!!! He is the sweetest baby there!
Friday, October 13, 2006
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